The disclosure of the present application relates generally to clamps, and more particularly, to atraumatic tissue clamps.
It has been well established that the clamping of blood vessels during surgery may induce injury to endothelium, media, adventitia, vasa vasorum, and baroreceptors. This crushing injury can cause acute events, such as vasospasm, or chronic events, such as endothelial dysfunction, initimal hyperplesia or other undesirable remodeling. In addition, the clamping of calcified blood vessels may result in the crushing of calcium or plaque and dislodging of particles in the blood stream that may lead to vessel obstruction, and consequently, tissue death. These outcomes are a result of design shortcomings associated with conventional clamps. The process of clamping using conventional clamps is invariably asymmetric which leads not only to compressive forces, but also to shear stresses resulting in damage to tissues. An additional shortcoming of conventional clamps is that the magnitude of the forces applied is not controlled or regulated directly by the clamps.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a clamping device and a technique of clamping tissue that does not result in damage to tissue from the potential asymmetric application of stresses to and across the surface of the tissue. The clamping device should be easy to understand and use, universally adoptable, efficient and relatively inexpensive.